ON BASEBALL

ON BASEBALL; Unwritten Rule Needs A Rewrite

By Murray Chass

Published: April 11, 2001

Maybe Turk Wendell slept through the game last season in which his team was losing, 8-1, to Atlanta after seven and a half innings, then erupted for 10 runs in the eighth and beat the Braves, 11-8. Otherwise, why did the Met relief pitcher make himself sound so foolish the other day in trying to make Vladimir Guerrero look so bad?

Wendell and Guerrero hooked up last Saturday in the sixth inning of a game the Montreal Expos led, 10-0. Wendell was pitching, and Guerrero violated one of those unwritten baseball rules. This one says: thou shalt not swing at a 3-0 pitch when your team has such a big lead. Wendell, who certainly belies the look of a traditionalist, let Guerrero know about his transgression. He let him know orally and physically, orally with a two-day volley of trash-talk and physically the next day with a pitch that hit him.

The incident, which could produce additional developments next week when the Expos visit New York, points up a difference that exists in the game today.

Once upon a time, teams played by the rule religiously. If they had a big lead in the late innings, they didn't swing at 3-0 pitches, didn't bunt and didn't try to steal bases. In short, they did nothing that might show up the other team.

Felipe Alou, who played in that era, believes in that kind of behavior. He believes in it so much that he said Guerrero ''committed a sin,'' apologized for his 3-0 swing and didn't seem to have a problem with Wendell's retaliation the next day.

But times have changed. They have changed because the pitching has changed. It is no longer good enough to guarantee any lead, no matter what the inning. Bobby Cox, the Braves' manager, said yesterday that one rule of thumb managers have used is not to let a grand slam beat them. In other words, if they have a five-run lead late in the game, that should be sufficient.

But not even the Yankees, with Mariano Rivera, their great closer, are immune to a late-inning collapse. Last August they took an 8-3 lead into the ninth against Anaheim, only to have the Angels score five runs, then win the game in the 11th inning.

''The game has changed so much,'' Cox said upon returning to his midtown Manhattan hotel room after a six-hour stroll around the island on his team's day off. ''You never know when a lead is safe anymore. We blew a lead with the Mets last year. It's a hard call now. You've got to score as many as you think it takes your team to win.''

A 10-run lead should be enough for any team to win, especially if the losing team has only two or three turns at bat left.

Research by the Elias Sports Bureau turned up only one game in the 1990's in which a team led by 10 runs or more after seven innings and lost the game. The 1990 Los Angeles Dodgers executed that trick, turning an 11-1 lead into a 12-11 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.

But with the proliferation of home runs and runs, how many managers are still willing to chance losing such a game?

''While I'm sensitive to not wanting to show up the opposition,'' Phil Garner, the Detroit Tigers' scrappy manager, said yesterday, ''I'm more sensitive to wanting to rest at night. If I call off the dogs and we lose, I don't sleep.''

Garner said a few old-school managers remain, the ones who go by the don't-let-a-grand-slam-beat-you guide. But, he said, ''These days you get back-to-back grand slams, and eight runs aren't safe.''

Contrary to telling his hitters not to swing at 3-0 pitches with one-sided leads, Garner said, he tells his pitchers to assume that opposing batters will swing at those pitches. ''Guys have a right to swing,'' he said. ''This is not a gentleman's game.''

A proponent of the stolen base, Garner also said: ''I don't call off the dogs on stolen bases till I feel we're safe. I don't do it to show a team up. It's out of respect for the other team.''

Garner recalled a game, when he managed Milwaukee, when the Brewers had a five-run lead over the Tigers in the sixth inning.

''I ran on Sparky,'' he related, referring to Sparky Anderson, the Tigers' manager, ''and he was a little concerned. I went over to him the next day and said, 'I know you're from the old school, but I'm not comfortable with your big boppers in your park with a five-run lead in the sixth, and I'm going to continue putting pressure on until I feel comfortable. I'm not trying to show you up.'

''About a week later he lost two games in the ninth with better than four-run leads. Modern baseball had changed.''

Was it Whitey Herzog who used to say he would promise not to try to score more runs with a big late-inning lead if the opposing team's pitchers promised not to try to get his hitters out? Should a batter stop at first base when he hits the ball into the right-center-field gap? If a team shuts it down and winds up losing, will the other team forfeit its victory?

''If you're playing in the World Series and it's 2-2 in games,'' Cox said, ''I bet you keep running if you have an eight-run lead in the seventh inning. I bet any manager would. And I bet they'd be bunting if they had runners at first and second and the pitcher up. So if you do it in a crucial short series, why wouldn't you during the season?''